Stenhouse playoff run maybe good for RFR but has another effect on Bayne

While it is good for Roush Fenway to get into the playoffs, their moves to make sure Ricky Stenhouse moves forward has a totally different effect on Trevor Bayne and his season. 

Trevor Bayne and his team are struggling through the run of
playoffs as the focus is on teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr

You can argue that it is the Ford issue, the crew chief issue but fact is, right now Bayne and his No. 6 team are pretty much lab mice for the 17 team until they fall out.  The money is flowing into the 17 team and here is the major down fall that is having on Bayne and his team.  The sponsorship dollars that are suppose to be going into Bayne's car probably are going to Stenhouse to try and make it further and fans can clearly see it. 

As a former crew member I would have took it as a slap in the face if I was the 17  crew that got Stenhouse into the playoffs and then told I was being swapped to the 6 team because they were faster.  They got Stenhouse there, they should have had the chance to get him to the finish line.  I heard at the beginning of this year that the cars would be built equally and there would be only several differences in case one car was faster than the other, yet I just don't see that right now. 

Performance is an issue, plain and simple and you need both cars performing at their maximum and with the organization flushing it to the 17 team to try and move forward it is truly a bitter time.  I never seen this happen when Mark Martin and Jeff Burton were teammates, the two worked together to make sure each other performed as well as the other.  It was a partnership in the garage when these two were teammates.  Since then Roush Fenway Racing has turned into more of a competition between its teammates than a working partnership.

These finishes are not good on attracting sponsors that the 6 team needs for next season either.  It still remains to be seen how many races that they have left this season where the car will carry that dreaded 401k sponsorship from Ford and Roush Performance.  The fact of the matter is Bayne carried the team with full sponsorship for two seasons and AdvoCare backed off after last year to a part-time sponsorship but remained the major sponsor on the car.   Liberty National Life stepped up as well this season, along with Performance Plus Motor Oil, however,  you've still got to put money into a car that the sponsorship provides and make sure they perform to its fullest and right now its clear RFR isn't with the 6 team. 

This season seven races have gone with those 401K sponsors as we used to call them at the shop when I worked.  So that's a lot of money that needs to be found and RFR is hurting the 6 team by hindering their performance during the 17 team's Playoff run.